Australia celebrating today: Liberals mortally wounded; workers finding their voice

If you’re a progressive in Australia this has been a good weekend and much more fun than the official “Australia Day” of last week.

The Soceroos beat South Korea 2-1 to win the Asian Cup in soccer.

Soceroos celebrating Campbell Newman’s own goal last night.

But even better, Campbell “Can Do” Newman got smashed in the Queensland state election and the knives are being sharpened in the Liberal caucus to stab Two Punch Tony Abbott in the back, the ribs, stomach and the neck.

In fact, by the end of the week he is likely to have more punctures than a balloon after a fight with a porcupine.

To top it off, the kool-aid slurping columnists on Rupert Murdoch’s Aussie rags are beside themselves with hubris and confusion.

So forget the soccer and the tennis; this weekend has been all about the politics.

After backing Two Punch Tony all the way for the past 16 months the NewsCorpse minions are now falling over each other in an attempt to explain away Abbott’s obvious failings and to shift the blame elsewhere.

Perhaps Australia has arrived at a tragic point where Labor can't govern and Liberals can't do politics. #Viewpoint 8pm @SkyNewsAust

— Chris Kenny (@chriskkenny) February 1, 2015

Even the rusted-on Liberal editbot Chris Kenny is getting twitchy about Abbott’s chances.

It’s no surprise really because Rupert himself has been Twittering his thoughts to all and sundry; his editors could hardly miss the point:

Abbott again. Tough to write, but if he won't replace top aide Peta Credlin she must do her patriotic duty and resign. More

— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) January 28, 2015

CanDo Newman — a losery winner in the Queensland election?

by Dr Mark Hayes

Dr Mark Hayes is a native Queenslander, a journalism academic, and a former researcher, reporter, and producer with the then ABC TV state-based weeknight current affairs programme, The 7.30 Report. He helped report on the Fitzgerald Inquiry and its aftermath, which continues today.

We’re off to the polls on January 31. Calm yourselves. The LNP will win.

After that confident prediction, several really interesting things may occur, interesting in the Chinese curse sense.

Rather than go into all the psephological details, the ABC’s indefatigable Antony Green is on the case.

Dr Hayes predicts an LNP win – let’s hope he’s wrong

The LNP will win because it holds a huge majority of seats in Queensland’s single chamber Parliament and there would have to be a genuinely astonishing state wide swing of almost 12% two party preferred against the Newman Government for Labor to win government in its own right. Then again, the massive swing against the Bligh Government in 2012 was astonishing.

Suprised? So are we

The LNP holds 73 seats in Queensland’s 89 seat Parliament. The ALP holds nine, independents hold three, and Katter’s Australian Party holds three seats.

Just to be clear about this, Newman and the LNP didn’t win massively in 2012 because Queensland voters eagerly endorsed, understood, or were even told what their real agendas and policies were, and remain.

The LNP largely won so comprehensively because they weren’t the tired Bligh Labor Government which had betrayed voters by privatizing some state assets, such as Queensland Rail’s lucrative freight division, after promising voters they would not do so, and Queensland Labor ran an awful election campaign. Campbell Newman capitalized on his high profile as former Brisbane Lord Mayor and the fact he wasn’t Anna Bligh.

Essentially the same reason the largely accidental Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, elected Opposition Leader by one vote and then pursuing a relentlessly corrosive attack strategy, won in September, 2013. He wasn’t Julia Gillard or Kevin Rudd and he wasn’t leading the ALP.

What has occurred since is largely backfilling the narratives to argue for ‘mandates’.